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A lifelong education advocate, Celina Moreno is a licensed attorney with expertise in building teams and multi-sector coalitions that improve the lives of students and their families.

Since 2019, Celina has served as President and CEO of IDRA, a national non-profit organization dedicated to equal educational opportunity, with offices in Texas and Georgia. IDRA transforms public education by: providing educator training, research, and policy and legal advocacy; directing powerful student and parent leadership programs; and building people power to create schools that nourish all students. Celina has expanded IDRA’s national impact and built its policy and legal teams, which focus on college access, fair funding, fair discipline, bilingual education and culturally-sustaining schools.

Celina is most passionate about developing leadership in underserved youth and has launched several IDRA initiatives: the IDRA Texas Youth Advisory Board and IDRA Georgia Civic Changemakers programs to train high schoolers as community researchers and advocates; IDRA Youth Leadership Now, which turns “at-risk” middle schoolers into tutors of younger kids; and IDRA’s Education Policy Fellowship to offer real-world legislative experience to early- and mid-career professionals.

Celina also initiated three new STEM in-school and community-based programs – IDRA VisionCoders, IDRA Youth TechXperts and IDRA Digital Ambassadors – supporting thousands of students in Texas to go to college and become the next generation of software coders and technology experts.

Under Celina’s leadership, IDRA began leading the Alamo STEM Ecosystem, which convenes industry, local government, non-profit, higher education, and K-12 leaders to cultivate STEM educational and career opportunities. The Alamo STEM Ecosystem has since been named as one of only four federal STEM Education hubs in the nation.

Celina previously directed policy and litigation for the Southwest Regional Office of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), the nation’s leading Latino legal civil rights organization. There, she successfully represented DREAMers to defend DACA and against a separate lawsuit that would have invalidated the Texas Dream Act. Celina also served as trial and appellate co-counsel in the challenge against the inequity and inadequacy of the Texas school finance system.

She represented Bexar County and the cities of San Antonio, El Paso and others against Texas’ anti-immigrant Senate Bill 4 (2017). She served as co-counsel in the Texas redistricting case seeking to protect the rights of Latino voters, in a case challenging the conditions and the detention of an asylum-seeking woman at the Hutto Residential Center, and in a case representing veterans in the American GI Forum to reverse a “whites-only” cemetery policy. She also co-authored MALDEF’s amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of 25 Latino organizations to support the University of Texas at Austin’s race-conscious admissions plan.

Celina chaired the Texas Legislative Education Equity Coalition and the joint Education Task Force of the Texas Senate Hispanic Caucus and Mexican American Legislative Caucus. She also served as co-chair of the statewide TRUST Coalition – a group of business, faith, civil rights and law enforcement leaders focused on immigrants’ rights – and the Texas Election Reform Coalition, a statewide voting rights coalition. Before MALDEF, Celina directed Texas RioGrande Legal Aid’s School-to-Prison Pipeline Project, staffed two Texas legislators, and taught middle school in Guanajuato, Mexico.

Celina is the recipient of MALDEF’s 2025 Excellence in Legal Service Award, Children at Risk’s 2024 Outstanding Child Advocate Award, the Mexican American Bar Association-San Antonio’s 2020 Community Leadership Award, Every Texan’s 2017 Future of Texas Award, and the Texas Association of Mexican American Chambers of Commerce’s 2017 Women of Distinction award. She is a 2018 German Marshall Fellow. She has also served as an adjunct professor in Texas A&M University-Commerce’s Department of Educational Leadership.

Celina was born and raised in San Antonio, where she sat on the Mayor’s Commission on the Status of Women and served on the boards of the San Antonio Public Library Foundation and Empower House, a non-profit seeking to empower women and girls. She has a master’s in public policy from Harvard University, a journalism degree from the University of Texas at Austin, and a law degree from the University of Houston. Celina loves dancing, international travel and visiting national parks with her husband Lucio Del Toro, her babies Yazmín and Augusto, and her three bonus kids, Rocío, Marcos and Iliana.

Media featuring Celina Moreno

IDRA President and CEO Celina Moreno | ¡Nosotros! with Elaine Ayala, November 17, 2023

Latinas in Education, ¡SALUD!, KLRN-TV, September 28, 2023

How YOU can impact education policy | Empowering student voices (IDRA profile), The Niceset Nick, July 2, 2023

50 Years of Strengthening Education in SA, Nation, KABB-TV Focus on South Texas, May 27, 2023

‘This is our legacy’ — Commemorating 50 years of the fight for school finance equity in Rodriguez vs San Antonio ISD, Texas Public Radio: Fronteras, March 10, 2023

Youth STEM Ambassadors to Peek Inside the World of Aviation and Aerospace, State Aviation Journal, January 24, 2021

Law journal to host immigration experts from across the United States – Virtual immigration symposium to focus on reconnecting with humanity, St. Mary’s University News, February 23, 2021

Want to increase voter participation? Invest in education, #WeRefuseToLose, November 18, 2020

Mexican American Civil Rights and Public Education panel at the launch of the Mexican American Civil Rights Institute in San Antonio, August 14, 2020

Commentary: Not aiding DACA students merciless, by Celina Moreno, for the San Antonio Express-News, May 14, 2020

Schools Lean on Staff Who Speak Students’ Language to Keep English-Learners Connected, Corey Mitchell, Education Week, April 27, 2020

A Unique Blend of Research, Policy, Practice and Engagement to Impact Public Education for All Students, by Celina Moreno, María “Cuca” Robledo Montecel, Aurelio Montemayor, Association of Mexican American Educators (AMAE) Journal, Vol. 13, No. 3, 2019

Protect college admission laws that reward merit, hard work [op ed], Celina Moreno, J.D., Texas Tribune, April 4, 2019

UH Law Center graduate Celina Moreno ’10 chosen to lead education advocacy organization, University of Houston Law Center, November 16, 2018

IDRA President’s Message Re: COVID-19 to Our Community Partners, March 23, 2020